Lizzie Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by ESP Witch
Summary: The letters constantly confiscated from Lizzie by her grisly aunt and uncle become a little harder to ignore when their letter-writer bursts through the door on the night of her eleventh birthday and informs her she is a witch set to attend a school called Hogwarts... Fem Harry. Full Canon Rewrite. Close reading and textual character analysis.
1. The Vanishing Glass

Author's Note: This project has several elements.

It is part fiction-based close reading. What I mean is that this will be a full canon rewrite, but I will also take all elements of the text that I see as specifically Harry-biased and expand upon them into a fuller, more explicitly written character. Think of this as textual Harry on steroids.

But it is also a fem Harry story. I will be looking only and strictly at what would realistically change with a gender-switch. (Hint: Without some other catalyst, the Dursleys don't change as much as you'd think. So read at first for the close-reading and character expansion.)

Now, this will be a full canon rewrite, so if you find those boring… I don't know why you'd read this long enough to write a review?

So those are the three main elements - close reading character expansion, fem Harry with only logical changes, canon rewrite. If that sounds interesting to you, strap on your seat belts, here we go.

Final note - I included the haircut bit because according to Jo it was based off of a scene that actually happened to her as a little girl. You'll see what I mean.

* * *

 **Lizzie Potter and the Philosopher's Stone**

Chapter One: The Vanishing Glass

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had taken in their orphaned niece, but Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been ten years ago. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different colored bonnets - but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The father, big and beefy with hardly any neck and a very large mustache in a suit and tie, was Vernon Dursley, director of a local Surrey drill-making firm called Grunnings. The mother, thin and blonde with nearly twice the usual amount of neck and beady eyes, was Petunia Dursley, a housewife. They were in some photographs, but the focus was obviously on their son Dudley, who was now over ten years old. The room held no sign at all that another child of the same age lived in the house, too.

Yet Elizabeth Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Her Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

Lizzie woke with a start. Her aunt rapped on the door again.

"Up!" she screeched. Lizzie heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. She rolled onto her back and tried to remember the dream she had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. She had a funny feeling she'd had the same dream before.

Sometimes it felt like Lizzie never got to sleep for long enough. There was always a tone of longing when she thought back over her dreams, which could be quite vivid and complex; there, in her dreams, she was safe.

Her aunt was back outside the door.

"Are you up yet?" she demanded.

"Nearly," said Lizzie.

"Well, get a move on. I want you to look after the flowers for the morning and then cook breakfast. Something of your own choosing, something nice and not too weird. And don't you dare let it burn, not today, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."

Lizzie groaned.

"What did you say?" her aunt snapped through the door.

"Nothing, nothing…" Lizzie muttered, somewhat grumbling and irritable.

Dudley's birthday - how could she have forgotten?

Lizzie was a bit absent-minded in everyday life, hence the birthday forgetting and the burning breakfast comment. She was a good cook, though, when she paid attention. Many hobbies were denied her - the Dursleys distrusted and forbade art and imagination, while sports for them would be not feminine enough for a girl. So if she wanted interests, especially at school where the Dursleys usually didn't bother her, she had to get creative.

Hobbies that were accepted by the Dursleys included cooking, baking, and flower gardening - ornamental, useful, and practical household skills that could also be turned into creative hobbies. Countless books of cooking and baking lined Lizzie's shelves, while her space was also decorated with sprigs of wildflowers. She loved wildflowers and her own little individual plot in the front garden was a whimsical shrine to that love. In cooking and baking she favored fantastical designs and unusual taste combinations; a blue cake flavored with both spices and chocolate, for example, or cottage pie with pineapple, cucumbers, and tomatoes, its pineapple crust done up in fanciful meringue-like waves. In baking, she had a particular love and weakness for chocolate, and really outside baking as well. She also preferred big, warm, hearty, filling traditional comfort meals.

She was also allowed books and music as long as she wasn't actually writing or playing. After her ornamental hobbies and her need for good-looking clothes to keep up appearances (a boy's poor clothes might have been dismissed as his being rough with them, but a girl couldn't say the same and the Dursleys feared gossip almost as much as they loved hearing about other people's), the Dursleys had gotten used to buying simple, cheap things for her. So also in her space were long rows of books and musical albums, complete with a record player in the corner. Both the record player and the wildflowers added personalized touches to the space, as did the scattered bars of chocolate. Polaroid photographs of some of her favorite finished culinary creations also decorated the walls, mingled with Polaroids of Lizzie with school friends.

In books, Lizzie loved biographies, psychology, science, sci fi, mysteries, and psychological fiction. Interested by sports in spite of all social training, she had a few sports tomes in there as well. In music, Lizzie loved old-fashioned jazz and the much-more-modern punk rock.

Lizzie got slowly out of bed, throwing back her old quilt, and started looking for socks. She found a pair under her bed - typical of Lizzie with her constant, absent-minded scattered messes - and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. She was rather matter of fact about the whole action. Lizzie was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where she slept.

She didn't dwell on this much. She knew it wasn't good, but this was just how life was.

She got dressed. The most expensive clothes the Dursleys would buy Lizzie were from thrift stores and secondhand shops. Deciding to go with this, she'd gone vintage in her fashion choices many years ago. By now, she had something from every era: old-fashioned gowns (which she had an obsession with; there were magazine cutouts of her favorite ballgowns taped above her bed) went alongside square-shouldered 1940's women's jackets and 1960's slinky mod dresses and caps. She had a pair of soft blue bell-bottom pants and a long, flowery shirt from the late 60's and early 70's in her dresser drawers as well.

When she was dressed she went out the front door into the front garden in the dewy early morning. She knelt among the plants and dug her hands deep into the soil, tending to the flower beds she and her Aunt Petunia cared for so the whole street could see them, walled in by their hedges and their low garden wall. She and her aunt didn't get on, but they had a few things, making food together and gardening as a team being chief among them.

When she was finished with the gardens, she went back inside the neat, square suburban house and down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Lizzie tried not to feel bitter and acerbic, but it was very hard; last year for her own birthday, she'd been given an ugly old blouse of Aunt Petunia's and a coat hanger to put it on. Dudley broke a whole television and he got a new one. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Lizzie anyway, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise - unless of course it involved punching somebody. He demonstrated this liberally with other boys at school, most of whom were not quite as good at running based on phys ed as Lizzie was and so had no chance of escape from being made punching bags.

Was this Dudley comment fat shaming? Yes. But Lizzie did not fat shame equally. She only fat shamed people she thought were perfectly horrible anyway. And she'd never claimed to be perfect.

Lizzie was fast, too, very fast, though she was not strong and her form was not naturally athletic looking. She didn't mind; she liked the way she looked. She was small and slim, pixie-like and very short and lightweight. She had a slimmer heart-shaped face, dimpled knees, long thick shiny jet-black hair that went straight past her shoulders and down her back, and almond-shaped bright green eyes. She wore square black-framed glasses with soft curves in the classic geek-chic look, but less heavy and more wearable. The only thing Lizzie was self-conscious of in her own appearance was a very thin scar on her forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. She had had it as long as she could remember, and the first question she could ever remember asking her Aunt Petunia was how she had gotten it.

"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."

 _Don't ask questions_ \- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys. Lizzie had plenty of questions when it came to the Dursleys, but she had learned to cut herself off from saying them out loud. In fact, she rarely spoke out loud in her own home at all. Her goal was to survive - get along - not to fight back.

The scar was worth noting, though, because how she looked mattered more deeply to Lizzie than how she was treated. Treatment she could get used to, but she wanted self respect. It was a strange quirk, possibly stemming from her time being raised by the Dursleys. She usually tried to hide the scar behind her fringe.

Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Lizzie was in the midst of making breakfast - a kind of baked blueberry French toast with chocolate orange Chia pudding and some lavender blackberry scones she'd baked one afternoon a couple of days ago. He couldn't find anything wrong with her, so he gave her no morning greeting, heaving himself down at the table to his morning paper and his coffee instead.

Uncle Vernon never seemed to know quite what to do with Lizzie. There was nothing wrong with her, necessarily, and he couldn't resent her or be aggressive the way he could have with a boy. The end result was that except when she was being punished, they had very little contact. Usually she interacted more with her Aunt Petunia, who alternated between anger and something akin to begrudging fondness.

But he could have at least wished her a good morning. It was only polite, and politeness and manners mattered to Lizzie.

Lizzie was almost finished with breakfast by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. It had taken him long enough, Lizzie thought to herself in annoyance. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. He was spoiled and violent and ugly and Lizzie deeply hated him. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel - Lizzie often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.

The most he did do for her was protect her from other bullies at school. The most she did for him in turn was tutor him so that he got grades good enough to pass through the years. It was a reciprocal and mutually resentful relationship filled with lots of mocking, under the belt antics, bickering, and name-calling.

Lizzie put the plates of breakfast on the table, which was difficult, she thought begrudgingly, as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.

"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."

"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here, under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."

"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Lizzie, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, quickly pulled her plate into her lap in case Dudley turned the table over.

As she'd said. Survivor. She'd made this breakfast and come hell or high water she was finishing her damn meal. And she was not going to wolf it all down before the tantrum could happen like some crass boy.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another _two_ presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? _Two_ more presents. Is that all right?"

Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Lizzie had learned over her tutoring sessions that Dudley always managed to make thinking look like hard work. "Seven plus two," she muttered.

Dudley brightened. "Oh! Thirty-nine."

Aunt Petunia was delighted. "That's right, sweetums!" she cried, flinging her arms around him and firmly ignoring Lizzie. Lizzie hated being ignored about as much as she was used to it.

Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "Well. All right then."

Uncle Vernon chuckled.

"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.

At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Lizzie and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote controlled aeroplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. Lizzie counted methodically, as always in a state of slight disbelief at the sheer amount of spending this must have taken. Dudley was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take her." She jerked her head in Lizzie's direction.

Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Lizzie's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Lizzie didn't even resent that she didn't get the same on her own birthday so much - but she did resent that she never got to see other places and go with her relatives, no matter how horrible they were. Every year on Dudley's birthday, Lizzie was instead left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Lizzie hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg made her look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.

"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Lizzie as though she'd planned this, an impossibility Lizzie slightly resented. Lizzie knew she ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when she reminded herself it would be a whole year before she had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws, and Tufty again.

"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.

"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the girl."

It was true, so Lizzie didn't mind the comment. Lizzie didn't care about true, factual things. But she did hate that the Dursleys often spoke about her like this, as though she wasn't there - or rather, as though she was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug. As with her birthday outing beef, she hated the lack of experience or thought for her opinion, the lack of representation in her own home.

"What about what's-her-name, your friend - Yvonne?"

"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.

"You could just leave me here," Lizzie put in hopefully (she'd be able to watch what she wanted on television for a change, and have a nice day doing her usual hobbies for herself out in the quiet to the hum of television).

Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon. In a morbid way, Lizzie found the reaction strangely funny.

"And come back and find the house in ruins?" Aunt Petunia snarled.

"I won't blow up the house," said Lizzie, but of course they weren't listening.

"I suppose we could take her to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave her in the car…"

"That car's new, she's not sitting in it alone…"

"What if I went over to a friend's house for the day?" Lizzie asked desperately. "I could call a friend from school!"

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon actually looked thoughtful, but at that moment Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying - Lizzie had a keen eye for these things and it had been years since Dudley had really cried - but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.

"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let that nasty girl spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.

"I… want… her… t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "I d-don't want her to have to go to a f-friend's house!"

This proved too much for Aunt Petunia. Lizzie watched in a wry, satirical kind of amusement as she began sobbing. "Oh, my darling, sensitive little boy!" Aunt Petunia cried.

Yes. That was what Dudley Dursley was. Darling and sensitive.

He was doing this because he knew she'd be happy at a friend's house, and they both knew it. Dudley shot Lizzie a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms. Both spiteful and nauseating, Dudley loved nothing more than finding little ways of making Lizzie's day unhappier. It was one of his favorite hobbies.

Just then, the doorbell rang - "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically - and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. He was Dudley's best friend, and Lizzie's least favorite member of Dudley's little schoolyard gang. Self conscious and macho to the end, Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.

Half an hour later, Lizzie, who couldn't believe her luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in her life. The very thought was thrilling! Dudley and Lizzie had both assumed the Dursleys would find some other horrible fate for Lizzie, but her aunt and uncle honestly hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with her. In the end, they'd simply let her come along. She'd won somehow without expecting to, the ultimate prize - a new experience, a new place. She was delighted.

But before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Lizzie aside.

"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Lizzie's as her own had wrinkled in distaste, "I'm warning you now, girl - any funny business, anything at all - and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."

Lizzie was used to such threats, so she barely blinked. "I'm not going to do anything," she said, "honestly…"

But Uncle Vernon didn't believe her. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Lizzie and it was just no good telling the Dursleys she didn't make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of dealing with Lizzie's long hair, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut her hair so short she was almost bald except for her fringe, which Aunt Petunia left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Lizzie, who spent a sleepless night imagining being laughed at in school the next day. Next morning, however, she had gotten up to find her hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. She had been given a week in her cupboard for this, a typical punishment, even though she had tried to explain that she _couldn't_ explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force her into a particularly revolting pink, fluffy sweater (Lizzie did not believe in things pink, fluffy, and cute the same way some people did not believe unicorns existed). The harder she tried to pull it over Lizzie's head, and the more Lizzie struggled indignantly, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet but certainly wouldn't fit Lizzie. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to her great relief, Lizzie wasn't punished.

On the other hand, she'd gotten into terrible trouble for the teacher incident. A teacher had once mocked her in front of her entire class for getting a problem wrong in answer to one of his questions. Suddenly, his hair had turned blue and slipped sideways off his head, as if a breeze that did not exist had suddenly flown through the classroom, revealing itself to actually be a toupee. The Dursleys received a very angry letter from Lizzie's headmistress, insisting in a tone of unmistakable confusion that Lizzie had somehow managed to turn her teacher's wig blue. But she hadn't done anything, something she had shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of her cupboard. All these things were just happenstance. She'd actually gotten so emotional in arguing with him through the door that for a moment she was whole inches above the ground, as if having leaped up into the air and been about to slam herself into the doorway. She'd noticed it just as her feet hit ground again, and it had startled her into silence.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. She felt a bright kind of sunny optimism in response to her stroke of good fortune. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, her cupboard, or Mrs Figg's cabbage-smelling living room. (And that was saying a lot.)

While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, the council, the bank, and how much extra money Lizzie cost them to keep around were just a few of his favorite subjects. He talked about Lizzie excessively, actually, it was exceptionally irritating. This morning, it was motorcycles.

"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.

"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Lizzie, blurting it out as she remembered suddenly. "It was flying."

Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Lizzie, who pictured his face in wry amusement like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"

Dudley and Piers sniggered.

"I know they don't," said Lizzie calmly. "It was only a dream."

But she wished she hadn't said anything. No funny image was worth getting yelled at. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than her asking questions, it was her talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon. It was why she wasn't allowed art and imagination. They seemed to think she might get dangerous ideas.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had been kind enough to ask Lizzie what she wanted before they could hurry her away (Lizzie could be as charitable to friendly people as she could be mocking to the unfriendly), they bought her a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Lizzie thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head, who she thought with cruel, amused irony looked remarkably like Dudley except that it wasn't blond.

Lizzie had the best morning she'd had in a long time. In her own silent way she felt emotionally, genuinely grateful for that. She lasted longer in interest than Piers and Dudley, actually, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his Knickerbocker Glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Lizzie was allowed to finish the first. Unless she made a dessert or a meal, she wasn't usually allowed to eat the sweets or have seconds of anything, so in her happy mind the delights just kept coming.

Lizzie felt, afterward, that she should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. This was by far the most interesting part of the zoo Lizzie felt she had been in so far. Dudley and Piers, to her girlish exasperation, wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. Lizzie was impressed despite herself; she thought fervently that it could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can - but at the moment it didn't look in the mood, she noted whimsically with a quirky little smile. In fact, and she may have been the only one who picked up on this little detail, it was fast asleep.

Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge. Lizzie watched with a raised eyebrow, but nothing was happening.

"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on. The whole interaction was increasingly taking on an air of the absurd.

"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.

Lizzie moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. She wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself - no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. The life seemed in her mind fully worthy of a melodramatic death; her uncle and cousin were idiots and so, she was sure, were plenty of other people. All this poor snake wanted was to be left alone, and that was exactly what no one would provide it. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least she got to visit the rest of the house. That jack-hammering started her morning, but it was all this snake's life consisted of, and Lizzie felt the natural sympathy of someone with a mildly bad life who was looking at someone with a terrible one.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. She felt the intense focus it was putting onto everything it looked at. Slowly, very slowly, the snake raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Lizzie's. Lizzie stood mesmerized.

 _It winked._

Lizzie stared in disbelief. Then she looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. Safe at least for now, she looked back at the snake and winked, too. She had no idea what was going on - but she wanted to see what would happen. If there was one thing Lizzie was good at, it was taking things in stride.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Lizzie a look that seemed to her to say quite plainly:

 _"I get that all the time."_

"I know," Lizzie murmured through the glass, though she wasn't sure the snake could hear her. That it wouldn't understand her by this point seemed a non-problem; she had already accepted that she could talk to this snake. "It must be really annoying."

The snake nodded vigorously. Lizzie mentally changed that to _extremely_ annoying.

"Where do you come from, anyway?" Lizzie asked. It seemed the conversational thing to ask, as if she were talking to a foreign exchange student.

The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Lizzie peered at it, squinting slightly to read the tiny words.

Boa Constrictor, Brazil.

Lizzie's first honest thought: "Oh, was it nice there?"

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Lizzie read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see - so you've never been to Brazil?"

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Lizzie made both of them jump. Her ears were actually left ringing. "DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T _BELIEVE_ WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.

"Out of the way, you," he said. Dudley didn't usually hit a girl, and what happened next was not a punch exactly, but this time he did shove Lizzie as his cousin or sibling figure out of the way of the glass tank. Caught by surprise, still in the midst of her snake conversation, Lizzie fell hard on the concrete floor. There was that brief moment of startled, humiliated pain that always followed slipping on ice. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened - one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror. Lizzie was left confused and alarmed.

She sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. Lizzie froze, watching very carefully. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past her, Lizzie could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come… Thanksss, amiga."

Despite her careful stillness and shock, it was actually a really cool moment. It was also the only truly happy ending that occurred that day. Against all the odds, Lizzie always kind of hoped that boa constrictor made it to Brazil.

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock. "But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?" By the time the snake left the reptile house, Lizzie was in a calm enough frame of mind again to find this genuinely funny. It was dry and completely absurd, just her brand of humor.

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Lizzie quietly enjoyed her own tea, as strong and sweet was just her preference, but she didn't pay much attention to Aunt Petunia's mental state to be frank. Piers and Dudley it seemed could only gibber, something that left Lizzie vaguely contemptuous. As far as she had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at the boys' heels as it passed, so she decided everyone was making a great big deal over nothing. It had happened; so what? But by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, things really had gotten out of hand - Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. Really. Worst of all for Lizzie was something entirely different from facing a massive snake - it was when Piers calmed down enough to say, "Lizzie was talking to it, weren't you, Lizzie?"

After that it was like everything inside Lizzie shut down from tense, silent, primal, dreading fear.

Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house - safe from the coming explosion - before starting on Lizzie. He was so angry he could hardly speak. Lizzie was left genuinely terrified, but the end result was rather comical in its anticlimax. Uncle Vernon managed to say, "Go - cupboard - stay - no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

This was Lizzie's final lasting impression of the night. Uncle Vernon hadn't specified the cupboard was going to be locked, so everything was okay this time really.

* * *

Lizzie lay in her dark cupboard much later, wishing she had a watch. The purchase would be expensive, but so deeply practical. As it was, she didn't know what time it was and she couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, she couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

All this was just another fact of life for her, just something to be put up with. Of course having a watch would be practical and of course it only made sense to sneak out for food after hours. What was the alternative, to curl up and die?

Lizzie had lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years - and yes, they had been miserable, all of them. She'd been with these people for as long as she could remember, ever since she'd been a one-year-old baby and her parents had died in that car crash. She couldn't remember being in the car when her parents had died. Sometimes, when she strained her memory during long hours in her cupboard - searching for something, anything, before this, wondering as she had always wondered about her parents - she came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on her forehead. This, she supposed with distinct curiosity, was the car crash, though she couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. She couldn't remember her parents at all. Her aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course she was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. She would know. Desperate for information, she had checked every single frame for an unfamiliar face.

When she had been younger, Lizzie had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take her away, had dreamed with the kind of longing and desperation she always dreamed with, but it had never happened and by now she had given that particular dream up; the Dursleys were her only family. Yet sometimes she thought (or maybe hoped, she thought in a moment of self-awareness) that strangers in the street seemed to know her. Perhaps she simply wanted a connection with someone else outside her little life, but these people really seemed to know her. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to her once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. She remembered everything, the exact shade of the hat, all of it, to this day. After asking Lizzie furiously if she knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at her once on a bus, seeming quite cheerful about it all, including her own stunning wildness. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken Lizzie's hand in the street the other day, and then walked away without a word. No one had ever shaken Lizzie's hand before. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Lizzie tried to get a closer look.

At school, Lizzie had her friends. She was that odd Potter girl, somehow singled out as fundamentally different from the rest in a way she didn't understand, but she had her friends. She took agriculture and culinary arts classes at the local schools, so she knew friends there. She was friends with all the librarians and library flies. The people in the 1920's club, eccentric and proud of it as they walked to school every day in their black flapper dresses and loved jazz, carried an especial fondness for her as a somewhat unacknowledged member of their own. She was friends with one skinny boy named Dave who shared her interest in sci fi, psychological thriller, and punk rock; she was closest friends with a rather shy girl in sweaters named Sophie. She was generally liked by members of her class because she was fast with good reflexes and good (if sensitive) observational skills, and therefore good to pick first in gym. She was also in most other ways unobjectionable, somewhat unnoticed, though her absences were strange; perhaps she was sick? Lizzie paid no attention to these rumors.

No one picked on her, she could at least say that. No matter how her cousin felt about her, she was the official sisterly property and unofficial tutor of Dudley Dursley and his gang. And nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.


	2. The Letters From No One

Chapter Two: The Letters From No One

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Lizzie her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote controlled aeroplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches. Lizzie was struck more than anything by the absurdity of it all; she could only shake her head in something akin to amusement.

Dudley's gang visited the house every single day over the summer holidays. They practically lived there; it was absolutely unreal and quite exasperating. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid - one massive, dumb, lumbering, multi-headed entity in her mind - but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, Lizzie had always assumed sarcastically, he was the leader. The rest of them followed Dudley in everything he did, which usually consisted of going around finding other kids to beat up.

Lizzie spent as much time as possible out of the house, visiting friends or sometimes simply walking the neighborhood streets or taking the bus into town. She thought a lot about the end of the holidays. When September came she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Lizzie, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.

"Girls have to put out to get accepted at Stonewall," he told Lizzie. Apparently, his desire to mock her outweighed his desire to protect her.

"Well then thank God you're not going," said Lizzie. "It's not like anyone would want to put out for you. And don't let your Mum hear you saying those things. Let's not ruin all her delusions that you're a good little boy who didn't get sex ed last year in school, shall we?" And, in a cool, frosty sort of manner, she marched away with her nose in the air.

It was fun getting back at Dudley, but as for the rumor he had told her? Well, Lizzie thought grimly, no one ever said life was fair or easy. Still, the comment lingered secretly in her mind for several days afterward.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Lizzie at Mrs Figg's. Mrs Figg wasn't as bad as usual - she wasn't good, but there was a definite improvement. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, when Lizzie had asked after her leg, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. It shouldn't have been, but Lizzie thought privately that this was rather funny. Instead of showing her the dreaded cat pictures, Mrs Figg let Lizzie watch television and gave her a rather terrible piece of chocolate cake that tasted, Lizzie decided with dramatic disgust, as though she'd had it for several years.

That evening, Lizzie was given a neat pile of grey schoolgirl uniforms in her size from London to be put in her cupboard. Dudley was then commanded to parade around the living room for the family in his own brand-new uniform. This difference was expected, and this time Lizzie didn't envy Dudley in the slightest; "parading" was not her thing. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. It was horrifying, but very funny, the hat nickname topping it all off. Smeltings' boys also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. According to Uncle Vernon, an alumni, this was supposed to be good training for later life.

Depressingly, Lizzie supposed she couldn't exactly argue with this line of reasoning, especially when it came to men.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Lizzie didn't trust herself to speak. Not out of emotion - on the contrary, she actually thought two of her ribs might have already cracked from trying to suppress the giggles.

* * *

Everyone sat down to breakfast at the table the next morning. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual, Aunt Petunia set the table, and Dudley banged his Smelting stick (as Lizzie had come to think of it), which he carried everywhere because he was a dumb boy who liked loud and violent noises, on the table Aunt Petunia was trying to set.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Lizzie get it."

"Get the mail, Lizzie."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Lizzie dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and a letter for Lizzie.

Lizzie picked up her letter and looked it over curiously. She had friends and she belonged to the library, so she'd gotten mail before, from personal friendly letters to those notes from the library she'd always found distinctly rude asking for books back. The address read:

Miss E. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

E for Elizabeth, her full name. The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald green ink. There was no stamp and no return address.

Turning the envelope over, now distinctly curious - this was like no letter she had ever received before - Lizzie saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms: a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large-letter H.

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke. A true believer in wit, Lizzie hated people who laughed at their own jokes; she thought it showed the height of a distinct lack of class.

Lizzie went back into the kitchen, still looking curiously at her letter. She handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. Lizzie was always slow and careful when opening her mail; what if something important tore?

Uncle Vernon, on the other hand, ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.

"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk…"

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Lizzie's got something!"

Lizzie was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of her hand by Uncle Vernon.

"That's mine!" Lizzie said indignantly, trying to snatch it back.

"That's mine!" Dudley mocked in a whining tone, and he and Uncle Vernon snickered, their eyes narrowed to slits in their twin huge red faces.

"Come on, guys, I get mail all the time!" Lizzie shouted in frustration, standing and losing her temper, fists clenched.

"So you say, but really, who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking Lizzie's own letter open with one hand and glancing at it. "Now, let's see what it say -" But he had paused, the humor falling away to reveal naked fear at what he read on the sheet of parchment. Uncle Vernon's face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.

Lizzie watched these remarkable, vivid changes closely, suddenly avid for information. This letter, whatever it was… she had been right. It was unique.

"P-P-Petunia!" Uncle Vernon gasped.

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. Lizzie honestly expected her to fall over right where she stood. Aunt Petunia clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!"

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Lizzie and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley (unlike Lizzie) wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick, a kind of warning.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

Lizzie was not angry - she'd received plenty of mail before - but she was curious as to just what was so horrible and interesting in this letter addressed to her. "Hey, here's an idea," she said sarcastically, speaking up for the first time. "Maybe I could read it at some point, as it's addressed to me?"

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Lizzie didn't move. Now she was getting annoyed.

"I want to read that letter," she said, her eyes narrowing.

"Let _me_ see it!" demanded Dudley, who was equally unused to not getting his way.

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, startling even Lizzie with the sudden explosion. He took both Lizzie and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Lizzie wasn't hurt or upset - she was too busy being avid for information. Dudley immediately manned the keyhole, the prime listening spot, giving her a snotty sort of look. Reluctantly, glaring, Lizzie instead, her glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address - how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching - spying - might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly. It could have just been Lizzie's imagination, but this letter seemed to have caused a deep upset inside him; he sounded slightly unhinged. When she'd seen the address, her first, calmer and probably more rational thought had been to wonder if the letter-writer had already visited her house in the past. It was the Dursleys who always assumed the worst when it came to anything odd. Lizzie was a bit more of a skeptic.

"But what should we do, Vernon?" Aunt Petunia asked. "Should we write back? Tell them we don't want -"

Lizzie could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.

"No," he said finally, after an age where Lizzie had been on just as keen tenterhooks as her aunt. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer… Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"

"But -"

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

* * *

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before, something wondrous in its sheer enormity; he visited Lizzie in her cupboard.

"Where's my letter?" said Lizzie, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."

"It was _not_ a mistake," said Lizzie, now distinctly angry, at the dismissive tone on top of everything else. "It had my cupboard on it." And she was weirdly defensive of her little space, so this stung.

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and the intimidating moment was ruined for Lizzie when a couple of spiders immediately fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful. Lizzie wondered if it hurt Uncle Vernon, to try to look that friendly.

"Er - yes, Lizzie - about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… you're really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"Why?" said Lizzie.

"Don't ask questions!" snapped her uncle, and she jumped a little despite herself. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. Lizzie said this with no resentment; it was just how it had always been. But two things did not escape her: First, that it only took Lizzie two trips upstairs to personally move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room, and about half an hour to set the whole place up as her cupboard had been decorated. Second… as she sat down on the bed and stared around her… nearly everything of Dudley's already in here was broken.

The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog. In the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled. There was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for an air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Lizzie could see the breaking of every expensive gift clearly in her mind's eye, probably better than Dudley himself could have, because more was spent on a single one of Dudley's birthdays than had ever been spent on her collectively over the entire span of her life. Other shelves were full of books. Sadly, they were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't _want_ her in there… I _need_ that room… make her get out…"

He had never before sounded more whiny and childish, an impressive feat if ever there was one.

Lizzie sighed and flopped back on the bed, her long straight inky black hair spilling out around her head. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. She'd have given up anything she owned, given up any acquaintance. But yesterday an important and curious mystery had not been at play, nor a chance for connection, and today she'd rather be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

* * *

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Lizzie found this as amusing and satisfying as she was capable of finding anything at the moment, which was not very much. She was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, she did not fail to notice, kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Lizzie (trying being the operative word), made Dudley go and get it. They heard him whacking things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss E. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive' -"

With a strangled cry that sounded distinctly unwell, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall. Lizzie stayed put. She didn't fancy wrestling both her uncle and her cousin to the ground in the hopes of getting a letter from them. Apparently Aunt Petunia didn't either, because she also stayed in her seat. They sat at the kitchen table, deadpan, and listened as Uncle Vernon and Dudley wrestled each other to the ground to get at Lizzie's letter, accompanied by a lot of loud bangs from the Smelting stick.

At last, the fighting stopped and Lizzie heard Uncle Vernon gasping for breath. "Dudley," he wheezed, "go - just go." Uncle Vernon had apparently won control of the letter.

After that everything else became unimportant. Lizzie stood from the table, edged past Uncle Vernon on his way back into the kitchen with the envelope clutched in his hand, and hurried up the stairs.

Lizzie walked round and round her new room. When she was thinking fast, she could never sit still; it had always been that way; sometimes spinning thoughts even kept her awake at night. This had just gotten serious. Someone was watching, and more than that someone was trying to contact her. They seemed to be on her side. The Smallest Bedroom - the address was almost mocking her uncle, like whoever was writing these letters could see his intentions and thought very little of them.

This person knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? That was all that mattered to Lizzie at this point - contact, information.

This time she'd make sure they didn't fail to deliver. She had a plan.

* * *

Lizzie had repaired the second bedroom's alarm clock herself. She could do most things around the house by this point, she'd been assigned so many chores growing up; when she wanted something cleaned or fixed, she just did it. It was easier.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock that very next morning. Lizzie turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. Her heart hammered, thudding almost painfully in her chest, as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door -

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Lizzie leapt into the air, barely registering that she herself had emitted the scream; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat - something _alive!_

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Lizzie realized that the big, squashy something had been her uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Lizzie didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. The possible terrifying implications of this wouldn't hit Lizzie until years later; at the time, she didn't register that she could no longer leave the house, but only that her uncle had outwitted her in this game of chess she was now playing, the waiting game.

In the end, Uncle Vernon's reaction was not as bad as she'd feared. He shouted at Lizzie for about half an hour and then told her to go and make him a cup of tea. Lizzie shuffled miserably off into the kitchen, reluctant and wretchedly unhappy, and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Lizzie could see three letters addressed in green ink.

"I want -" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes. The cruelty was not her focus; the missed opportunity, however, she felt keenly.

She became quiet after that, constantly watchful, taking everything in and waiting for her chance. She began to see everything in terms of simple fact, strategy. She watched everything, especially her uncle, keenly and constantly in almost total silence.

Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't _deliver_ then they'll just give up."

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, and Lizzie was sure that he failed to see his own irony as he tried to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

This was the first big sign of Uncle Vernon becoming increasingly and dangerously unhinged.

* * *

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Lizzie, an incredible number even by her hopeful standards. She didn't know who these people were, but they meant business. As the letters couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

More than being necessary, how was that possible?

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could get out. Though there was a funny side to this and even a strategic side, even Lizzie was starting to become worried now for their basic safety.

Uncle Vernon hummed "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" as he worked and jumped at small noises. It was very creepy.

* * *

On Saturday, Lizzie could admit to herself that things were beginning to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Lizzie had found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window.

It was at this point that Lizzie stopped wondering how, and started assuming simply anything was possible.

While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy - trying, as Lizzie knew he was, to find someone he could complain to - Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor. They were getting creative in their letter-destroying.

"Who on earth wants to talk to _you_ this badly?" Dudley asked Lizzie in amazement.

* * *

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. In a distant way, Lizzie was actually concerned for him. She watched in alarm as he cheerfully and blindly began to spread marmalade on his newspapers.

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them, "no damn letters today -"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply in the back of the head. Lizzie jumped. This was nothing, however, to the start she got when in the next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Lizzie leapt into the air quickly trying to catch one -

"Out! OUT!"

Uncle Vernon seized Lizzie around the waist and threw her into the hall. Her sole thought was to get up again and get back in there, but by the time she'd stood it was too late. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut, very hard. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, obviously trying to speak calmly but belying himself by pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue, much less Lizzie, who nonetheless couldn't help but notice how strange this whole moment was. A part of her, as always, could not take her relatives seriously. Ten minutes later, twice as long as promised, they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors with a Herculean effort borne mostly from Uncle Vernon's fury - so at least they'd been able to get back out at all - and they were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling rather pathetically in the back seat and Lizzie felt somehow sorry for him; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.

Lizzie didn't dwell long on the implications of this. With Uncle Vernon, in the state he was in, it should have been expected.

They drove. And they drove. Forever, it seemed. Not a soul dared to risk making any noise in the car. Even Aunt Petunia didn't ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp, surprise turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.

"Shake 'em off… shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this, and yes, Lizzie thought, definitely unhinged.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. Even Lizzie was miserable. By nightfall Dudley was howling; his cries were closer to screams. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer. Lizzie's eyes were rolling every so often as she stared out the window by the end of the day.

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Perhaps it was the poor street lighting and the unlit letters in the hotel sign, but the huge, looming building seemed to Lizzie to carry a distinctly frightening air. Inside and upstairs, Dudley and Lizzie shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Lizzie tried feeling the sheets, but she could smell the mold and she ended up sleeping very little in the bed that night. Dudley snored but Lizzie stayed awake - despite her sharp daytime senses, when her own mind was quiet she could usually sleep and dream through anything, but her own mind wasn't quiet. That was part of the problem. She sat on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering…

About everything, really.

* * *

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. How this hotel had managed to screw up cornflakes and toast, Lizzie hadn't the faintest idea. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.

"Excuse me, but is one of you Miss E. Potter? Only I got about a hundred of these at the front desk."

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Miss E. Potter

Room 17

Railview Hotel

Cokeworth

Lizzie made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way. The woman stared. Lizzie didn't mind the momentary pain, but she was frustrated that she kept missing her shot.

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following the woman from the dining room.

* * *

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, and yes Lizzie could hear the fear and lack of confidence in her voice, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. Lizzie watched him do this in different places, counting out each action carefully each time, but she couldn't figure out what he was trying to do. Other notable and incredible stops of interest were the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multi-level parking garage.

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. It was the most sensible thing Lizzie felt Dudley had ever said, if a bit stupid in its obviousness, but it seemed Dudley had finally screamed himself out and lost all true interest in whatever was happening around him. Uncle Vernon had by this point parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.

Lizzie sat and waited patiently in the car, but she was unsure if her uncle was ever coming back at this point.

It started to rain, a perfect reflection of everyone's mood. Great drops beat on the roof of the car in hard, steady hails. Dudley sniveled, and by this point Lizzie hadn't an ounce of pity left for his patheticness.

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a _television."_

Monday. This reminded Lizzie of something. If it _was_ Monday - and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, July 31st, was Lizzie's eleventh birthday. Of course, unless she got to spend the day with a school friend, her birthdays were never exactly fun - the old blouse and the coat hanger from the Dursleys last year still stuck out particularly strong in her mind. Still, you weren't eleven every day. She decided she'd make the best of it.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"

It was very cold outside the car; Lizzie wrapped her long-sleeved arms around herself and shivered. Rain she could handle, but cold rain was harder. Uncle Vernon was pointing - incredibly - at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. He wanted them to stay… on a rock? Perched on top of the rock (she refused to call it an island) was the most miserable little shack Lizzie was sure had ever been conceived by man. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together in what seemed to Lizzie a kind of bizarre childish delight. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"

A toothless old man came ambling up to them. He did not seem a strong contender in terms of mental or physical firmness. He was pointing, with what seemed to Lizzie a rather wicked grin that made her distinctly uneasy, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron grey water below them. The boat looked unsteady, the water unforgiving.

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"

It was freezing in the boat, colder still than it had been outside the car. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks, giving Lizzie horrible visions of potential hypothermia, and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed to Lizzie like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding on the rock he himself had requested, led the way to the broken-down house. It didn't seem to Lizzie upon closer inspection like anyone had actually lived here in quite some time - or even like it was safe to.

The inside was horrible to Lizzie; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms. She'd never been in a building so small.

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of crisps each and four bananas, a rather pathetic meal befitting of their surroundings. He tried to start a fire but the empty crisp bags just smoked and shriveled up.

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. It was a solid theory and Lizzie privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. The longer Lizzie stayed in this place, the dirtier she realized it was, and Lizzie despised dust and dirt almost as much she despised frills and clutter, another remnant of her time being raised by her Aunt Petunia and the Dursleys. Aunt Petunia found a few blankets that again smelled of mold and made up a bed for Dudley on the sofa, most of which had already been damaged or destroyed by moths. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the bed next door, which looked to Lizzie quite lumpy, and Lizzie was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

Was she feeling sorry for herself now? Yes. But under the circumstances, she felt she was entitled.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night wore on. Lizzie couldn't sleep and despite herself, she was frightened. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable. She tried to imagine sleeping in her dream bedroom, a Minimalist, clean, modern space with a flat bed, gold sheets, black pillows, and soft candles. It only sort of worked to comfort her. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which dangled over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Lizzie she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter-writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Lizzie heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, an idea her mind suddenly gave her terrible visions of, though she supposed with dull, melodramatic sarcasm that she might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow.

Because of course they would be going back eventually, wouldn't they?

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea? She pictured that, too - the whole rock crumbling away into the raging ocean, taking her, her wretched family, and the entire hut down with it.

One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine - maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him - three… two… one…

BOOM.

The whole shack shivered, all the way up to its very ceiling, and Lizzie sat bolt upright in a shock of fear, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.


	3. The Keeper of the Keys

Chapter Three: The Keeper of the Keys

BOOM. They knocked again, badly startling. Dudley jerked awake.

"Where's the cannon?" he said, rather stupidly in Lizzie's opinion.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. The whole thing was a dramatic but rather clumsy affair. He was holding a rifle in his hands - now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you - I'm armed!"

There was a pause. Lizzie was not terrified, necessarily, but she listened closely to the silence. Then -

SMASH!

Lizzie jumped as the door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a crash so deafening it left her ears ringing landed flat on the floor. The sheer force this must have taken was incredible.

A giant of a man was standing in the doorway, wholly intimidating. His face was almost hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but Lizzie could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. It was those beetle-eyes, as Lizzie now thought of them, that made her curious.

The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. That was how big he was. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame, his demeanor so matter of fact that the action almost became so. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

When he spoke, it was in a West Country accent.

"Couldn't make us a cup of tea, could you? It's not been an easy journey…"

He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear. Lizzie had never seen her cousin so entirely still and terrified.

"Budge up, you great lump," said the stranger.

Dudley squeaked like a mouse and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.

"And here's Elizabeth!" said the giant.

Lizzie looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle-eyes were crinkled in a smile. Again there was that paradox - he looked terrifying, but instinctively seemed nice.

"Last time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "You have your Dad's black hair and glasses, but you've got your Mum's green eyes."

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise. It was curious, Lizzie thought, how against this conversation he seemed to be.

"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"

"Ah, shut up, Dursley, you great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room. Lizzie stared in disbelief.

Uncle Vernon made another funny noise rather like Dudley's, as if he were a mouse being trodden on. This whole interaction was becoming quite satisfying.

"Anyway - Elizabeth," said the giant, turning his back fearlessly on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to you. Got something for you here - I might've sat on it at some point, but it'll taste alright."

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a box. It was slightly squashed, but Lizzie found that quite forgivable at the moment. Her fingers trembled as she opened it. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with the words "Happy Birthday Elizabeth" written on it in green icing.

Lizzie looked up at the giant. She meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to her mouth, she was so numb with shock. What came out instead was an unconnected jumble of sentences, "You were right, chocolate is my favorite. And it's Lizzie, not Elizabeth. Who are you?"

The giant chuckled.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

He held out an enormous hand and shook Lizzie's whole arm. His sheer strength was incredible.

"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no to something stronger if you've got it, mind."

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled crisp bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with beautiful, flickering light, with blessed dryness and warmth, and Lizzie felt it wash over her as though she'd just sunk into a hot bath. A warm, luxurious bath had never seemed more welcome to her.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged amusingly under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Everything he brought out seemed warm, homey, and cheerful. Soon the hut was full of the wonderful, delicious sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, Lizzie like the Dursleys was too intimidated, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley seemed to feel Lizzie's own eager, bright-eyed hunger and Lizzie noticed he fidgeted just a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."

In the face of such warmth, he just came across as even nastier than usual. The giant chuckled darkly, a kind of black humor in his tone.

"Your great pudding of a son don't need fattening anymore, Dursley, don't worry."

He passed the sausages to Lizzie, who was so hungry she had never tasted anything so wonderful, but as the evening was later to pass she barely noticed herself eating sausage and chocolate birthday cake and drinking tea, let alone what any of it tasted like. Too much was happening before her. She still couldn't take her eyes off the giant, who fascinated her for many reasons. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything the way she had been hoping they might, she said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, apparently not one for table manners.

"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. And like I told you, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts - you'll know all about Hogwarts, of course."

"Er - no," said Lizzie.

Hagrid looked shocked.

"Sorry," Lizzie said quickly, hoping to head off any impending explosion.

"Sorry?!" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows in a way that seemed deeply suspicious. "It's them that should be sorry! I knew you weren't getting your letters but I never thought you wouldn't even know about Hogwarts, for crying out loud! Did you never wonder where your parents learned it all?"

"All what?" asked Lizzie.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered, and Lizzie jumped. "Now wait just one second!"

He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. And if Lizzie was intimidated, the Dursleys were cowering against the wall.

"Do you mean to tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this girl - this girl! - knows nothing about - about ANYTHING?"

Lizzie thought this was going a bit far. She was defensive of her own intellect. She had been to school, after all, and her marks were pretty good - she even tutored Dudley and his dumb friends.

"I know _some_ things," she said. "I'm good at math, for example."

But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About _our_ world, I mean. _Your_ world. _My_ world. _Your parents' world."_

"What world?"

Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode. Lizzie kept expecting for the top to come popping off of his red-faced head and for steam to come pouring out.

"DURSLEY!" he boomed, and even Lizzie felt herself grow smaller in face of that voice.

Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded absurdly like, "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Lizzie, as if unhinged in sheer disbelief.

"But you must know about your mum and dad," he said. "I mean, they're _famous._ You're _famous."_

"What? My - my mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"You don't know… you don't know…" Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Lizzie with a bewildered stare.

"You don't know what you _are_?" he said finally, after what seemed to Lizzie like a very impatient age.

Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice, startling Lizzie, who had almost forgotten his presence.

"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the girl anything!"

A braver man than Vernon Dursley, who was small (Lizzie knew) in more ways than his narrow mind, would still have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him. When Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage. It was awe inspiring. Lizzie had never seen anyone successfully tell off her bullying aunt, uncle, and cousin before.

"You never told her? Never told her what was in the letter Dumbledore left for her? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! And you've kept it from her all these years?"

"Kept _what_ from me?" said Lizzie eagerly, fascinated, wanting this hidden information badly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic - and yes, he was loud and sharp, but now Lizzie saw clearly that all it was hiding was fear.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror, showing fear herself.

"Ah, go boil your heads, both of you," said Hagrid. "Lizzie - you're a witch."

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard, the sounds taking on a strangely romantic, enchanting quality.

"... N-not as in the insulting way? As in the real kind?" Lizzie stammered out, shocked.

"Yes." Hagrid smiled. "As in the real kind."

"I'm a… I'm a…" She couldn't even think it. She was totally lost.

"A witch, of course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which absurdly groaned and sank even lower, "and a thumping good one, I'd say, once you've been trained up a bit. With a mum and dad like yours, what else would you be? And I reckon it's about time you read your letter."

Lizzie stretched out her hand at last, slowly, after so long waiting and hoping, to take the yellowish envelope addressed in emerald green to Miss E. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. She read the address carefully. Then she pulled out the letter itself and made sure to slowly read the whole thing, every word and every detail:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Miss Potter,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress

Fantastical questions exploded inside Lizzie's head like some incredible fireworks display, and she couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes she stammered, "What does it mean they await my owl?"

"Galloping Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with what Lizzie estimated was about enough force to knock over a carthorse - she really couldn't get over how much bigger he was than her - and from yet another of the seemingly endless pockets inside his overcoat he pulled an owl - a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl, Lizzie noted in disbelief - a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth in effort, he scribbled a note that Lizzie discovered curiously she could read upside down:

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Lizzie (Elizabeth) her letter.

Taking her to buy her things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid

Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the poor owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down - incredibly - as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.

Lizzie realized her mouth was open and closed it quickly.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

"She's not going," he said.

Hagrid grunted.

"I'd like to see a great Muggle like you stop her," he said.

"A what?" said Lizzie, interested suddenly by everything.

"A Muggle," said Hagrid. "It's what we call non-magic folk like them. And it's your bad luck you grew up in a family of the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took her in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of her! Witch indeed!"

"You _knew_?" said Lizzie. "You _knew_ I'm a - a witch?"

"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly, surprising the entire room. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that - that _school_ \- and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frogspawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years. It was like she had suddenly and temporarily gone mad, like everything building up inside her unnoticed by all had just come spilling out.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as - as - _abnormal_ \- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"

Lizzie had gone very white. As soon as she found her voice she said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"

"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid fearsomely, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner like the little cockroaches Lizzie was realizing they were. "How could a car crash kill Lily and James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Elizabeth Potter not knowing her own story when every kid in our world knows her name!"

"But why? What happened?" Lizzie asked urgently. This, she could feel, was the most critical and pressing matter - certainly the most important matter to her.

The anger faded slowly from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious - but why would he be nervous, even uneasy?

"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble getting hold of you, how much you didn't know. Ah, Lizzie, I don't know if I'm the right person to tell you - but someone's got to - you can't go off to Hogwarts not knowing."

He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.

"Well, it's best you know as much as I can tell you - mind, I can't tell you everything, it's a great mystery, parts of it…"

He sat down - Lizzie was so absolutely riveted she spared no thought at all to what the sofa was doing. He stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with - with a person called - but it's incredible you don't know his name, everyone in our world knows -"

"Who?"

"Well - I don't like saying the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?"

"Gulping gargoyles, Lizzie, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…"

Hagrid gulped, but no words came out. Just how terrifying had this man been?

"Could you write it down?" Lizzie suggested, trying to help.

"Nah - can't spell it. All right - _Voldemort_." Hagrid actually shuddered. "Don't make me say it again. Anyway, this - this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started looking for followers. Got them, too - some were afraid, some just wanted a bit of his power, 'cause he was getting himself power, alright. Dark days, Lizzie. Didn't know who to trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was taking over. 'Course, some stood up to him - and he killed them. Horribly. One of the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was ever afraid of. Didn't dare try taking the school, not just then, anyway.

"Now, your mum and dad were as good a witch and wizard as I ever knew. Head boy and girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the mystery is why You-Know-Who never tried to get them on his side before… probably knew they were too close to Dumbledore to want anything to do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade them… maybe he just wanted them out of the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, in Godric's Hollow on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came to your house and - and -"

Hagrid surprised Lizzie by suddenly pulling out a (very dirty) spotted handkerchief and blowing his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad - knew your mum and dad, and nicer people you couldn't find - anyway…

"You-Know-Who killed them. And then - and this is the real mystery of the thing - he tried to kill you, too. Wanted to make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killing by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on your forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what you get when a powerful, evil curse touches you - took care of your mum and dad and your house, even - but it didn't work on you, and that's why you're famous, Lizzie. No one ever lived after he decided to kill them, no one except you, and he'd killed some of the best wizards and witches of the age - the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts - and you was only a baby, and you lived.

"All sorts of rumors flew around after. How could a little girl stand up to a big man like You-Know-Who and survive? People started saying that you were so pure and so good, filled with so much love, that you actually physically weakened a powerful man and brought him to his knees. You could not be killed by evil. People started calling you The Girl Who Lived, and the name - like the image of the scar, an unusual feature on a girl - stuck in the public imagination. The Dark Side, meanwhile, claimed you were some violent budding Dark Lady, but we all know that's ridiculous.

"But of course, they're all rumors. How did you really survive? No one knows for sure."

Something very emotionally painful was going on in Lizzie's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, she saw again the blinding flash of green light, felt again the burning pain on her forehead, more clearly than she had ever remembered them before - and she remembered something else, for the first time in her life: a laugh, unnaturally high for a man's, cold and cruel in its very sound.

Hagrid was watching her sadly, like he could almost see the thoughts passing across her expression. Lizzie had no idea what her face looked like.

"Took you from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders, on a flying motorcycle. Brought you to this lot…"

"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Lizzie really jumped this time, fully into the air; she had forgotten the Dursleys were there. It was like they didn't belong here, with this story, not at all. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage; at last, he was acting in Lizzie's eyes like he had a spine. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.

"Now, you listen here, girl," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured - and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion - asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types - just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end -"

But at that moment, in a very impressive motion, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a surprisingly battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley - I'm warning you - one more word…"

In danger apparently of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again and he retreated back into pathetic spinelessness; he flattened himself against the wall and fell obediently silent.

"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which Lizzie now had the wherewithal to notice sagged right down to the floor.

But none of this was important - not the Dursleys, not the sofa. She couldn't afford to focus on them. Lizzie still had questions to ask, what seemed to be hundreds of them.

"But what happened to Vol-, sorry - I mean, You Know Who?"

"Good question, Lizzie. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried to kill you. Makes you even more famous. That's the biggest mystery, see… he was getting more and more powerful - why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, biding his time, like, but I don't believe it. People who was on his side came back to ours. Some of them came outta kinda trances. Don't reckon they could've done if he was coming back.

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause something about you finished him, Lizzie. All rumors of love and pureness aside, I dunno what it was, no one does - but something about you stumped him, all right."

Hagrid looked at Lizzie with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes like a roaring fire. Lizzie felt sure she should be feeling pleased and proud, but instead she was quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. Some powerful, pure good witch? Her? How could she possibly be? Lizzie could be an awful, nasty, stuck up, sarcastic snob when she wanted to be; she slept in too long, and made messes in her room, and forgot about cooking food and burned breakfast; she was not exactly one for delicate white snowflakes and soft pink things. She'd spent her life being bullied by Dudley, Aunt Petunia, and Uncle Vernon; if she was really a witch, why hadn't her aunt and uncle been turned into warty toads (that seemed the appropriate thing for a witch) every time they'd tried to lock her in her cupboard? If she'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world through some mysterious means, how come she had always had to reserve herself to sarcastic comments in response to Dudley's mocking, how come she'd had to tutor him to keep on his good side?

"Hagrid," she said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a witch, and certainly not the Girl Who Lived."

To her surprise, Hagrid chuckled. She'd half-expected upset or anger.

"Not a witch, eh? And not the Girl Who Lived? No memories you can't explain; you didn't just hear your relatives confirm my story? And you never made things happen, did you, when you was angry or scared?"

Lizzie looked into the fire. Now she came to think about it… how else did she explain her strange memories, or the Dursleys' own words and actions? And every odd thing that had ever made her aunt and uncle furious with her had happened when she, Lizzie, had been upset or angry… dreading going to school with that quite frankly ridiculous haircut, she had managed to grow it back… dreading wearing that stupid pink, fluffy sweater, she had managed to shrink it out of her size… angry and hurt by her teacher's mocking, she had managed to humiliate him and cut straight to the thing he'd disliked most about himself… upset at being locked in her cupboard, she'd managed to levitate as if to slam herself into its door… and the very last time Dudley had shoved her, hadn't she got her revenge, without even realizing she was doing it? Hadn't she set a boa constrictor on him by befriending it, then by vanishing its glass tank?

Lizzie looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at her. He had seen the realization of wonder, unashamed and unabashed wonder, grow across her face.

"See?" said Hagrid. "Elizabeth Potter, not a witch - you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."

But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight. Lizzie's eyes narrowed, cautious, watchful. She was determined, now, to go - but she had her relatives to deal with first.

"Haven't I told you she's not going?" he hissed. "She's going to Stonewall High and she'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and she needs all sorts of rubbish - spell books and wands and -"

"If she wants to go, a great Muggle like you won't stop her," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily and James Potter's daughter going to Hogwarts! You're mad. Her name's been down ever since she was born. She's off to the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and she won't know herself. She'll be with youngsters of her own sort, for a change, and she'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled -"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HER MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon, exploding completely.

But he had finally gone too far - it had taken him long enough, but he'd used up the last of Rubeus Hagrid's patience. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head. When he thundered, he was scarier. "NEVER - INSULT - ALBUS - DUMBLEDORE - IN - FRONT - OF - ME!"

Hagrid brought the umbrella swishing elegantly down through the air to point at Dudley - there was a flash of very distinct violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Lizzie saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Uncle Vernon roared, and for a moment, in what seemed now an old instinct, Lizzie stayed carefully still and watchful. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, Uncle Vernon cast one terrified look at Hagrid, however, and slammed the door behind them.

A door closed on Lizzie's life, separating her from the Dursleys. She had just learned an important thing - that no matter how angry he got, Uncle Vernon was terrified of and would not fight back against magic.

Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.

"Shouldn't have lost me temper," he said ruefully, seeming ashamed of what he had done yet somehow still amused by it, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant to turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left to do."

Lizzie could confirm this as a solid theory.

Hagrid cast a sideways look at Lizzie under his bushy eyebrows.

"Be grateful if you didn't mention that to anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm - er - not supposed to do magic, strictly speaking. I was allowed to do a bit to follow you and get your letters to you and stuff - one of the reasons I was so keen to take on the job -"

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Lizzie.

"Oh, well - I was at Hogwarts meself but I - er - got expelled, to tell you the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half and everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why were you expelled?"

"It's getting late and we've got lots to do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up to town, get all your books and that."

Lizzie supposed it was Hagrid's own business whether or not she knew. In fact, in a fond, exasperated way, she was rather amused by the blatant avoidance.

Hagrid took off his thick black coat and threw it at Lizzie.

"You can kip under that," he said. "Don't mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple of dormice in one of the pockets."

… Comforting.


End file.
